It's Easier To Lead, Than To Be Left Behind
by MadeIndescribable
Summary: Ezri considers the role the Dax symbiont has played in her new life, and where it has brought her. - Set just prior to the Star Trek: Destiny relaunch novels.


_If not Worf, you would have been the one._

For all the times those words had gone through her head, Ezri Dax honestly couldn't remember how long it had been since her mind repeated them last. But sitting down to breakfast she was reminded of that first meeting with Julian, _her_ first meeting with him at least, when she had joined him at the replimat. She had often regretted that choice of words to introduce herself – as much as it is a choice when you're just rambling – but in time she had come to live with what must have been such a bittersweet burden placed on one of her closest friends. More importantly so had Julian, particularly when they themselves had become lovers.

She had never regretted her time spent with Julian, even if she did consider it somewhat ironic that after that fateful introduction their own romantic relationship came to an end over Julian's lingering feelings for Jadzia rather than the other way around. But while any break up is never easy, she at least knew how she herself felt even if he didn't. If nothing else, that time she had rejoined with Worf helped give her some clarity as to what were Jadzia's feelings and what were her own.

She watched the swirl of matter disappear as the replicator absorbed the energy it had just created for itself and wondered how long until her light but sufficient breakfast would do the same for her. She hadn't anticipated a full appetite on this of all mornings, but the guilt was unexpected. As a former counsellor it probably shouldn't have been, but that's not how her mind always worked these days. The guilt she felt about feeling guilty though, that was classic Ezri through and through.

But this is where she was now, having officially moved quarters last night after the formalities with her senior staff and Admiral McCormack, she settled at her desk to review the mornings briefings before her initial duty shift began. She was halfway through her list before it even sunk in that her first formal command was to sign off on an Ensign declared fit for duty. She leant back as she pondered how such a small thing for someone at the start of their Starfleet career would – or should that be 'could' in times like these – lead to any number of possibilities.

She'd come a long way since the nervous Ensign Tigan of the USS Destiny had the power of so many previous lives thrust upon her (and how many times had Norvo joked about that name when she first told him its translation in their native tongue), but what was seven years compared to over 350? It wasn't often that her thoughts of who was Ezri and who was Dax resurfaced, but hardly surprising in those moments when she wasn't even sure who Ezri was any more.

It was an odd feeling, being lonely when you had another organism with the voices of its previous hosts on top of its own living inside of you. A being who had become part of you and you of it. But for all the company she had inside of her, it was hard for anyone who had never been joined to fully understand what it meant to live like this. The fact that many non-Trill species referred only to Dax as a 'symbiont' but herself as a 'host' just reinforced this lack of understanding that both were equal in this relationship. What she gave in mobility to explore the world(s) around her partner who wouldn't even see sunlight in its other natural environment was repaid in the memories and experiences of those who had come before her.

But that's all they were. Memories and experiences. She may have picked up a few habits here and there, but even her feelings for Julian came from her heart more than her pouch. While there would always be a small part that wanted to be with him, she was at least glad that Jadzia having Worf meant that she would always have her own memories of Julian that she would one day pass on to others, rather than having Jadzia's passed to her.

As she left her quarters she realised, perhaps fully for the first time, that although the sum of the multiple lifetimes at her disposal had hardly taken a back seat in the events that had led her here, they had never added to her potential as much as merely give her the means to realise her own. Up to now the biggest choices she'd made had always come with only one option. She couldn't live her life as Julian's second best any more than she could have let Dax die on the Destiny, but this time round the lack of hesitation meant there wasn't even a choice at all.

And it wasn't Tobin who could feel every vibration of the turbolift's ascent, nor was it Audrid who straightened herself under the weight of four pips on her collar. It wasn't anyone else except Ezri Dax who heard the four words which would once more mean meeting old friends in a new situation.

"Captain on the Bridge."


End file.
